Divina Press Tour – Fashion, Action, and Vic Freaking Mignogna!

Divina Press Tour – Fashion, Action and Vic Freaking Mignogna!

By Michael Sagoe (Mikedot), OnRPG Journalist

Beanfun is continuing to storm the MMO market with a dazzling array of anime inspired online games. New to their arsenal is Divinia, a colorful MMORPG with a story based on Norse Mythology. Divina is packed with features out the wazzo, like the ability to transform in to different monsters on the fly, multiple weapon styles for each of the five playable classes, a deep pet system and so much more. I checked out this game during a closed beta weekend and during a special press to give you guys a look at things come.

I hopped into Divina’s bright and colorful world as a female Machinist, who uses huge cannons and rocket launchers to attack enemies form a distance while adding support with landmines and traps for unsuspecting enemies.

Shortly after logging in, I met up with the Gamania Team along with GM Basilisk leading the group. The tour started with a little history lesson behind Gamania, were we learned more about the company’s business philosophies.

Divina has been around for quite some time in Asian territories, along with being well received by players for two things: The game’s storyline and the voice actors behind many of the game’s characters and NPCs.

Your character wakes up in a world on the brink of destruction, and along with a small case of amnesia, players must travel to the past with a mysterious girl named Clarisse (who also has amnesia… must some kind of epidemic) and go on a journey to stop the events leading up to the destruction of the Yggdrasil tree and the world. While most of the game’s lore is loosely based on Norse mythology, many of the later story quests will be based around Asian mythology as well.

The other half that made Divina so popular in Asia was the voice talent they’ve included in the game, such as the voice of Rie Tanaka from many, MANY different Japanese anime shows and video games.

Gamania US decided it was best to give the English version of Divina the same treatment, so instead of hiring some two-bit voice actors off the street, they managed to gather many well-known English voice actors such as Vic Mignogna, who’s best known as the voice of Edward Elric from English dubbing of Full-Metal Alchemist.

It was time to learn more about the gameplay mechanics. Divina uses several different stat and skill systems. Players will gain stat points every time they level up, and these points must be distributed manually. Pretty simple and straight forward, but along with this, there’s also the Divine Wheel system where players collect special pieces and cores to further increase their stats. Since player outfits have absolutely no stats of their own, leveling up and making use of the Divine Wheel is a must. What’s great about this system is that players won’t have to sacrifice style for substance. Players will be able to dress their characters in any fashion while having practical stats to use in battle.

Same class, same level, different outfits.

The amount of customization options doesn’t end there: There’s also a quick change system that allows players to switch into a different class on-the-fly. With the button of a button, my female Machinist was able to transform herself into a female Assassin right before my eyes.

As with your main class, players will have to level up their alternative class as well, but on the upside: only half the amount of EXP is required. Switching between classes in PvE must also be used sparingly, as players can only switch between classes three times before having to recharge. In PvP, however, players are free to change classes as many times as they want.

Once we learned about the quick change system, I got to try my alternative assassin class out on some poor, semi-defenseless sky wolves.

Afterwards, it was time to assault a bunch of lizard warriors while learning another unique feature of the game: The Creature Tome. This system allows players to transform into a field or boss monster, complete with their own set of skills. And earning a particular set of monsters in the creature tome yields special rewards and bonuses. There were so many creatures to choose from, but there was one monster in particular that I was looking for…

I have no clue what this thing is, but I want one!

I sadly couldn’t find this little guy on the list, so instead, I settled for transforming into a giant purple tortoise thing.

Next up: The game’s sidekick system and some PvP action. Divina has a unique pet system where players can have a little animal companion as a partner. They have their own set of stats and skills that can be tweaked through training them over time or by ‘talking’ to them. Talking to your pets means picking one of three different topics that will increase the pet’s friendship levels, allowing them to become more powerful and responsive in battle. My partner was a snobby little rabbit that didn’t seem to like me very much…

But still, my rabbit responded to my commands well enough in combat. The last thing we got to try out was some PvP. Divina has several different ways to enjoy PvP, such as Open World PvP, Guild Battles and more. Our matches were set up as 1-on-1 duels out in the pit of the Wind Kingdom. First match was Cleric against a Machinist. Despite the Cleric having several support and range attacks at their disposal, the Machinist ended the match in a flash.

I was up next with my Machinist against the same Cleric player. My strategy was to lay down a few traps while firing shots from a distance, then switch to my assassin whenever they got too close. Unfortunately, my plan didn’t work out so well.

I was more prepared for the next match. This time, I decided to send out my rabbit sidekick to attack and distract my opponent before coming in for the kill. My rabbit completely destroy my opponent with only a few swipes. Everything went better than expected!

Overall, there’s so much that Divina has going for it that I couldn’t possibly mention it all in this one little preview. I didn’t get a chance to go over the game’s Guild Domain system, Nickname system, day & night system and so much more. Definitely an MMORPG worth checking out in the future and of course, it has Vic-freaking-Mignogna. What more could you want?